Hard to Keep Cold in North Korea

The business website Quartz reported in June that a popular consumer item in North Korea's perhaps-improving economy is the refrigerator, made in China and increasingly available as a reward to stellar performers among civil servants and other elites. The appliances, however, cannot reliably store food because the country's electric grid is so frequently offline; they're mostly just status symbols. Items Quartz says are often displayed in the refrigerator: books.